title: Action comprehension in non-human primates: motor simulation or inferential reasoning?
abstract: Some argue that action comprehension is intimately connected with the observer's own motor capacities, whereas others argue that action comprehension depends on non-motor inferential mechanisms. We address this debate by reviewing comparative studies that license four conclusions: monkeys and apes extract the meaning of an action (i) by going beyond the surface properties of actions, attributing goals and intentions to the agent; (ii) by using environmental information to infer when actions are rational; (iii) by making predictions about an agent's goal, and the most probable action to obtain the goal given environmental constraints; (iv) in situations in which they are physiologically incapable of producing the actions. Motor theories are, thus, insufficient to account for primate action comprehension in the absence of inferential mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, Department of Psychology, 3620 South McClintock Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. justin.wood@usc.edu
authors.forename: Justin N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: Marc D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Hauser
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D032882:Comprehension; D006040:Goals; D000882:Haplorhini / Q000523:psychology*; D015186:Hominidae / Q000523:psychology*; D033182:Intention; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000523:psychology; D009039:Motion Perception; D009042:Motivation; D011340:Problem Solving; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012931:Social Environment; D013045:Species Specificity